Slashdot Mirror
NASA Parts Scroungers Resort To eBay For Parts
beggs writes: "The New York Times is running this article about NASA using ebay and other web resources to find for sale stock piles of old hardware it needs to keep the Space Shuttle fleet up and running -- things like 8086 chips from pre-PC days!" Come to think of it, this might be a better way to take care of most NASA bidding anyhow.
The flag icon for Slashdot's 'United States' section is missing its first stripe - the stripe that represents Delaware, the first state admitted to the Union. While a simple oversight could be forgiven, it should be known from here on out that Slashdot is in fact aware of the missing stripe, and even worse, refuses to do anything about it!
This vulgar flag desecration and rabid anti-Delawarism must be put to a stop. Let the Slashdot crew know that we will not accept a knowingly mutilated flag or the insinuation that Delawarians deserve to be cut out of the union. I ask you, what has Delaware done to deserve this insolence, this wanton disregard, this bigotry?
This intentional disregard of a vital national symbol is unpatriotic. Why, the flippant remarks CmdrTaco made about our flag border on terrorism! I urge you to join the protest in each 'United States' story. Sacrifice your karma for your country by pointing out this injustice. Let's all work together to get our flag back. Can you give your country any less?
If your software runs on a generic Un*x system and compiles with e.g. gcc, and is properly written and documented, you shouldn't need to worry much about migrating to a new platform, it'd just involve possibly some code tweaking and recompiling, right?
Most of the time I download a program from Sourceforge, the README file lists about 20 different environments it'll compile in.
Now that's future-proofing!
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
No wonder we can't find life in outer space. Those 8086's must take years just process one download!
Live web cams
Random updates on my climbing shoes (which I'm sure you find facinating), and a plea for advice on a good book on rock climbing techniques.
OK, so I've gone ahead and implemented my plan to stretch my climing shoes using shoe trees. This has worked perfectly. The toe box has stretched out just enough to relieve the pain in my toes. However, the "slingshot heel" (basically a huge-ass rubber band around the achilles tendon that holds your heel in the shoe) also has the side effect of cramming my toes down into the shoe. So the extra space only lasts as long as I keep my heel back. As soon as I step off the ground, my toes are all jammed up again. Feh.
So, I'm currently stretching out the "slingshot" portion, hoping to reduce it's inappropriately huge pulling power. I've also considered surgically modifying the band to make it thinner and reduce its power. But for now I'm trying for a non-violent solution.
I ran across a book this evening called Mountaineering : The Freedom of the Hills, which looks like a great reference for rock climbing and mountaineering. Anyone had any experience with it? I'm learning most of the practical stuff from fellow climbers, but I'm obsessive, and want to read up as much as I can.